I've been busy scanning a large number of my prints (a scanned print is a much better indication of the process than an original file, or photoshop manipulated image). Since I have a number of examples of this process, I figured I might as well describe it.

Plaintum prints were once the mainstream way of printing B/W images. Platinum, rather than silver, offers much longer life as well as a very long tonal range. There are currently no commercial platinum papers available, so if someone wants to try it, they need to coat their own.

Normal silver based papers consist of a mixture of light sensitive silver salts thinly coated onto a baryta/gelatin surface. Because of this surface, the Dmax (or level of maximum 'blackness') is very high, resulting in very dramatic, deep blacks. A platinum print is made up of a mixture of platinum and palladium salts that have been made light sensitive, spread onto watercolor paper. The chemistry not only sits on the surface of the paper, but soaks into it. The result is an image that doesn't have as deep of a black, but has an appearance of 'depth', and a *very* long, smooth tonal range. This depth is one of the characteristics of a platinum print that can't currently be duplicated using inkjet printers (the recent release of baryta papers for inkjet prints has allowed inkjet to more closely resemble traditional silver prints).

Silver paper is sensitive to the visible light spectrum (there's a falloff with red light, with allows for processing silver paper using a red safelight). Platinum is not sensitive to the visible spectrum.. but to UV light. This difference offers some advantages and disadvantages. When I coat and develop my platinum prints, I do so under normal tungsten light (florescent light emits UV)... which means you don't need a darkroom to process. But because it's UV, an enlarger can't be used to expose the paper... you must either use direct sunlight or a dedicated UV light source. It also means it's a contact process, you have to have a negative the same size as the print you want to make. In the past, this has meant that most platinum printers used Large (8x10) or Ultra Large Format camera (11x14, 7x17, 8x20,16x20, 20x24) to capture their images. Digital technology and the ability to create 'digital negatives' has brought a renewed popularity to platinum. By 'digital negative', I don't mean a DNG file used to capture RAW images, rather a actual negative printed on a transparency material using an inkjet printer. There are various methods to calibrate a digital negative for a specific printing process, and I won't be going into those details here.

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.

Our purpose is getting to an impressive photograph. So we encourage browsing and then feedback. Consider a link to your galleries annotated, C&C welcomed. Images posted within OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated.